I Just Want to Tell You I Love You
by Idunnowhy
Summary: What happened to Lloyd and Julianne when Julianne realizes she hurt a good man...and Lloyd might be what she's been looking for after all? Picks up at the end of Breakout Kings.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This picks up after the last episode of Breakout Kings, which left all of us wondering what the heck was going to happen with Lloyd and Julianne! Since they dropped the series, however, this is my thought on how this would have all played out. Life is a little crazy, so I'm doing this in short little bites to be able to update regularly. Thanks for tuning in!**

'I just want to tell you that…I love you.'

'I do have feelings for you, just…not like you think.'

'It was just a kiss. I regret doing it.'

'If you don't like it, you can call the Marshals and report my escape. I'm just a con to you anyway.'

'I kissed Lloyd.'

'Damn it Jules, I vouched for you!'

'You're going to have to go down there.'

'You with the Marshals? Your guy's over there.'

"Shit!"

Throwing down the book in her hand, Julianne leaned back in her bed and pressed her palms to her burning eyes. It was three o'clock in the morning. She had to get up for work in a few hours, but she'd long since given up on sleep.

She hadn't slept, really slept, in days. She could have blamed it on the turmoil that followed Damien's death, now that the Marshals were gunning for Ray. But she knew that wasn't the real reason.

She hadn't slept since the day she'd found Lloyd in that basement.

That whole horrid day was frozen in her head on repeat. It should have been so simple. Tell Lloyd she wanted to be friends. Work the case. Get back to normal.

Only it hadn't worked that way.

She'd thought, for a terrible, horrible moment, she'd thought he was dead. Tipping her head up to stare at the bland white of her standard issue apartment ceiling, she let the blinders she'd set up slip. She heard the voice on the phone in her ear, telling her that they'd gotten a phone call from Damien-and that Lloyd was there. She felt the knot in her throat when she'd called Ray, and the way her stomach had plummeted when she saw them wheeling a body out.

When she'd seen him, alive and well, she hadn't thought. She hadn't thought about the police, or her reputation. She hadn't remembered that he was a con and she was a contractor with the US Marshals. She hadn't even remembered that she'd told him she didn't love him. All she could see was that he was alive and well, and right there in front of her.

Then he'd turned his head and looked at her, just looked at her, and in that second before he'd looked away those dead eyes had told her everything. Lloyd had been pushed past his breaking point. While she'd been fretting that he'd made a run for it, he'd been locked in this basement with Damien doing whatever it was that had led to that body being wheeled out. While he was trapped down there he'd thought…well, she had no idea what he'd thought, but given the way they'd parted she was pretty sure it wasn't good.

It had been a long, silent ride back to the office. Lloyd had stared blankly out the windshield, lost in the hell of his own mind, while Julianne struggled to find a way to reach him. She hadn't been surprised when Ray said he'd quit, any more than she'd been surprised to see him come back. He had to finish this. He knew it. She knew it. The whole team knew it.

What made it worse was that Damien knew it. She'd had to listen for minutes to Damien's endless taunting, pulling more pieces off of Lloyd while he struggled to hold it together long enough for Julianne to get a fix on his location. She'd never forget the surge of victory she felt when that alarm rang through the telephone.

Now Damien was dead, Max was in jail and Teresa was safe, and none of them seemed to know where to go from here. They were all just marking time until their next case, with too much time to think.

Julianne didn't want to think. Because when she did, she remembered that she'd hurt a good man. One that had gone out of his way to be there for her, time and time again. One who, she was sorry to say, she'd forced herself to think of as nothing more than a convict. A member of her team, maybe even a friend, but certainly no one she was going to consider being in a relationship with.

She didn't date convicts, especially not ones who still had 18 years left on their sentence. If you counted the time off for the runners they caught. Not that she was.

Snorting, Julianne reached over and snapped off the light, settling back into bed. Lying to her teammates and her boss was one thing. She really needed to quit lying to herself too.


	2. Chapter 2

"Lowery! Work release."

"Duty calls!" Lloyd rolled out of his bunk with a cheerful salute to his aging cell mate, who grunted and lifted a hand farewell. While the old man was creepy, he was a hell of a lot better than his previous cellies, and Lloyd found himself smiling on his way out the door.

The smile quickly fell away when he thought about what was ahead of him. This would be the first runner they'd tracked since Damien. Since they'd all been put on the spot to rat Ray out…in exchange for their freedom.

Lloyd knew Ray knew about what the Chief Director had asked them to do. What he'd offered them in return. Three years ago, Lloyd wouldn't have hesitated to throw Ray under the bus. But now…

Damien had deserved it. And he owed Ray a debt he could never repay.

It was a hard pill for him to swallow, but he owed Ray so much more than the two years he'd managed to shave off his sentence. Ray had gotten him out of max sec. He'd given him a shot at redemption. He'd pulled Lloyd out of a deep spiral of depression after Damien had killed that girl in front of him, and even when Ray had been well within his rights to hate him after Damien kidnapped Theresa, he hadn't. He'd pushed him, yelled at him, but in the end, Ray had been right there with him.

And it was because of Ray that he had Julianne.

Not that he _had_ Julianne, per se, he thought with a snort, trying to ignore the sideways glance of the guard and the sharp stab of pain in his chest. There wasn't nearly enough water under the bridge for him to be past the pain of Julianne telling him she regretted that kiss.

It figured that the first time he fell in love, it would be with someone that didn't want him.

The hardest part was, when he set his pride aside, he couldn't even blame her. She was everything-smart, resourceful, beautiful. Blooming now that she was slowly coming out of her shell. He was a convict, responsible, however indirectly, for the death of two young women. If he walked out of the prison today, he'd be unemployed. No medical license. No home. No income. His only chance at not spending the better part of the next 20 years behind bars was to throw her boss under the bus. If he were her, he wouldn't be in a relationship with him either.

He'd made the choice to tell Julianne how he felt about her. She'd been honest, just as he had wanted her to be. Now he had to find a way to live with that.

"You okay?" Erica asked softly as he climbed into the back of the van leaving Maybelle. Lloyd offered her a quick half smile.

"Are any of us really okay?" he asked, giving a pointed look toward the driver.

"Maybe not, but only one of us got shot down by their girl and kidnapped by a madman the same day. That's pretty much a five star shitty day right there."

"Shut up, you ass." Erica glared at Shea, who just raised his eyebrows back at her. The lack of fear on his face was alarming. Lloyd wasn't sure what had happened that tipped the balance between those two, but he suspected it had something to do with that NYPD investigation. He'd been pretty sure Erica was up to her neck in it. She was just a little too quick to disappear when that Pete guy was in.

But hey, who was he to judge? Dude might have turned out to be a creep and a murderer, but at least one of them was getting laid.

"Thanks for that Shea."

"Hey Iceman, what did I tell you?"

"Like that was ever going to happen." Erica rolled her eyes. Lloyd had to smile. It might have happened in the most fucked up way possible, but right here, right now, it was good to have friends.

"Yeah, well, we have bigger problems."

"We'll figure that out later." Shea bobbed his head frantically at the driver. Lloyd got the message. Not in front of witnesses. But they were going to have to figure out what they were going to do, and they were going to have to figure it out fast.


End file.
